游戏UX (GAMES UX)

Even though websites and games have matured side-by-side over the past few decades, games have a long and detailed history of user experience. Sure, it was scrappy and fairly rudimentary initially, but the only way you could tell if a game worked was by play testing it.

ËVEN虽然网站和游戏已经成熟并排侧，在过去的几十年里，游戏有用户体验的一个漫长而细致的历史。 当然，一开始它是草率的并且相当初级，但是您唯一可以判断游戏是否有效的方法是通过测试游戏。

As games have developed to function more like services and platforms, instead of simply standalone experiences, UX has become a much more comprehensive part of the development process.

随着游戏的发展，其功能越来越像服务和平台，而不仅仅是简单的独立体验，UX已成为开发过程中更为全面的一部分。

Both major and minor studios are crafting out separate UX departments, and there are entire conferences dedicated to the concept of UX in game design.

主要工作室和次要工作室都在建立独立的UX部门，并且有专门针对游戏设计中UX概念的整个会议。

With good reason: games are among the most popular medium on the planet, and as e-sports continue to grow, they’re only getting bigger. This space is where you can find a lot of the most exciting work on how people engage with interactive design.

有充分的理由:游戏是地球上最受欢迎的媒体之一，并且随着电子竞技的持续发展，它们只会变得越来越大。 在这个空间中，您可以找到许多有关人们如何参与交互式设计的最激动人心的工作。

To that end, what can product and web UX designers learn from their counterparts in video games?

为此，产品和Web UX设计师可以从视频游戏的同行那里学到什么？

As it turns out, a hell of a lot.

事实证明，这真是个地狱。

游戏中的用户体验设计师正变得越来越专业 (UX designers in games are becoming more specialized)

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, when games studios were taking off and many of the best-selling studios were only run by a handful of people, everyone had to jump on board and juggle multiple tasks. You weren’t just a game designer, you might be a developer or even have hardware experience. Gaming isn’t just an on-screen experience.

在70年代和80年代，当游戏工作室开始腾飞时，许多最畅销的工作室仅由少数几个人经营，每个人都不得不跳槽并完成多项任务。 您不仅是游戏设计师，还可能是开发人员，甚至具有硬件经验。 游戏不仅是一种屏幕体验。

Now, walk into a semi-professional game studio and, while that cross-pollination exists, you’ll see that most roles have been specialized including UX and with that maturation comes a huge amount of knowledge that can’t necessarily be found in web or product design.

现在，走进一家半专业的游戏工作室，尽管存在异花授粉，但您会看到大多数角色已经过专门化，包括UX，随着成熟，随之而来的是大量不一定能在网络中找到的知识或产品设计。

Why? Well, because they’re doing two different things. Software and product design is all about removing challenges for the user, while game designers are trying to craft challenges that are engaging and, most of the time, delightful. In web and product design, crafting an experience is quite linear and binary: you design, iterate, and then, if it works, the user engages with the software with ease. While there are always optimization initiatives, the process is fairly straightforward.

为什么？ 好吧，因为他们在做两种不同的事情。 软件和产品设计就是要消除对用户的挑战，而游戏设计师则要努力设计出引人入胜的挑战，而且大多数时候都是令人愉悦的。 在Web和产品设计中，制作体验是线性且二进制的:您进行设计，迭代，然后在可行的情况下使用户轻松使用该软件。 尽管总是有优化计划，但过程相当简单。

But game worlds have so many more variables that UX is an essential part of design. Designers might observe players doing things in ways they didn’t expect to achieve the same, positive results. Or even more exciting ways that players can interact with each other.

但是游戏世界的变量太多了，UX是设计的重要组成部分。 设计师可能会观察到玩家以他们未曾期望获得相同积极结果的方式来做事。 甚至是玩家之间更有趣的互动方式。

As we all know, some of the best features happen by accident which is why multi-billion dollar studios like Ubisoft, EA, or Nintendo spend a huge amount of money on constant play-testing and UX research. Through that research, they’ve uncovered principles that any UX researcher in any discipline should follow. Here are just a few of the best.

众所周知，一些最佳功能是偶然发生的，这就是为什么数十亿美元的工作室(如Ubisoft，EA或Nintendo)在持续的游戏测试和UX研究上花费大量金钱的原因。 通过这项研究，他们发现了任何学科的任何UX研究人员都应遵循的原则。 这里只是一些最好的。

始终保持平衡 (Complete balance, all the time)

You’ve probably heard of (and may love) Starcraft. Within months of its release back in 1998, it became one of the most popular e-sports in the world. In fact, it was one of the only major e-sports at the time. It essentially set the stage for the market to come.

您可能听说过(并且可能喜欢)《 星际争霸》 。 在1998年发布后的几个月内，它成为了世界上最受欢迎的电子竞技之一。 实际上，它是当时唯一的主要电子竞技活动之一。 它本质上为市场的到来奠定了基础。

The publisher, Blizzard, released a sequel in 2010. It quickly became a massive phenomenon too, and with good reason, the game is a radically fun way to pit three different alien races against each other.

发行商暴雪(Blizzard)于2010年发行了续集。这也很快成为一种大现象，并且有充分的理由，这款游戏是让三种不同的外星种族相互对抗的一种非常有趣的方式。

Yet that fun becomes chaotic when you have dozens of small aliens fighting each other, which is exactly why the design in Starcraft is so crucial. Creating bright, colorful units is essential to make sure that everyone knows where theirs are.

但是，当您有数十个小外星人互相搏斗时，这种乐趣变得混乱了，这正是《 星际争霸》中的设计如此重要的原因。 创建明亮，色彩缤纷的单元对于确保每个人都知道自己的位置至关重要。

The result? Even if you don’t know what’s happening at any one moment, you can easily recognize where your units are among these massive frays. Dozens of games have copied Starcraft’s model of doing this, including current popular titles like League of Legends.

结果？ 即使您一时都不知道发生了什么，也可以轻松地识别出您的单位在这些巨大竞争中所处的位置。 数十种游戏都抄袭了星际争霸(Starcraft)的模型，其中包括诸如《英雄联盟》之类的当前热门游戏。

Gamers of all ages want a quick and easy onboarding experience. Game makers have become extremely adept at finding ways to make two teams instantly distinguishable. Even items like icon or button designs need to become obvious when the player is using them over and over or needs to locate certain items within just a glance.

各个年龄段的玩家都希望获得快速便捷的入门体验。 游戏制作人已经非常擅长于寻找使两个团队立即脱颖而出的方法。 甚至当玩家反复使用图标或按钮设计之类的物品时，它们也必须变得明显，或者需要一眼就能找到某些项目。

The lesson? Your product or page needs to be recognizable to users within just a few seconds. Good design often lends itself to visually distinctive work. Play a few games and find out why.

课程？ 您的产品或页面需要在几秒钟内被用户识别。 好的设计通常可以使自己在视觉上与众不同。 玩几局，找出原因。

一致的正面或负面反馈 (Consistent positive or negative feedback)

One of the great things about games with massive player bases is that UX researchers can get answers to meaningful questions extremely quickly by running A/B tests. Riot Games one of the few companies that have a dedicated data science team across the business makes a habit of doing this in big ways.

拥有大量玩家基础的游戏的一大优点是，UX研究人员可以通过运行A / B测试来非常快速地找到有意义的问题的答案。 Riot Games是在企业中拥有专门的数据科学团队的为数不多的公司之一，习惯了大举这样做。

For instance, Riot is famous for running tests that boot “toxic” players for insulting others, but it also runs tests on user interface changes all the time, even for something as small as a button or icon.

例如，Riot以运行测试来启动“有毒”播放器侮辱他人的测试而闻名，但它也始终在用户界面更改上运行测试，即使是按钮或图标之类的东西也是如此。

Another way game UX designers differentiate from other markets is in the way they receive feedback. We often ask users to review a product on the app store, or on a product review website. Sometimes we ask in-product as well, but we don’t often go far beyond that.

游戏用户体验设计师与其他市场不同的另一种方式是他们获得反馈的方式。 我们经常要求用户在应用商店或产品评论网站上评论产品。 有时我们也会询问产品内的信息，但是我们通常不会超出这个范围。

In Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, Ubisoft — a massive studio with massive UX support — took that a step further by asking users for a rating after each mission. This isn’t usually done in games as it can sometimes break the narrative flow, but Ubisoft used the findings to double down on areas players liked for future games.

在《 刺客信条:黑旗》中 ，育碧–一个拥有大量用户体验支持的大型工作室–在每次执行任务后要求用户提供评级，从而进一步迈进了一步。 这在游戏中通常不做，因为它有时会破坏叙事流程，但是育碧利用这些发现将玩家喜欢未来游戏的领域扩大一倍。

The best feedback comes step-by-step, user-by-user.

最好的反馈是逐步，逐个用户的。

Getting feedback from users shouldn’t necessarily be about the whole, but about particular parts which is where you can find massive gold.

从用户那里获得反馈不一定一定是关于整体的，而应该是关于特定部分的信息，在这里您可以找到大量的黄金。

角色(可以随时更改) (Personas (which can always be changed))

We spend so much time creating personas but don’t always end up using them. They just sit there in the background, untouched.

我们花了很多时间来创建角色，但并不总是最终使用它们。 他们只是坐在背景中，没有动过。

But games aren’t shy about telling you there are personas working in the very foreground of the game. They straight up ask: how good are you at games? Do you want a story-based adventure with very little combat challenge, or do you want something tough that’ll beat you down?

但是游戏并不会害羞地告诉您在游戏的最前部有角色扮演。 他们直截了当地问:您的游戏水平如何？ 您是否希望进行基于故事的冒险，而战斗挑战却很少，或者您想要让自己失望的艰难事物？

It’s worth keeping this in mind during your content design. We tend to hold our personas very tightly and secretly, but as games show, there’s absolutely no harm in putting them straight in front of the user’s face.

值得在内容设计过程中牢记这一点。 我们倾向于非常紧密和秘密地握住我们的角色，但是正如游戏所显示的那样，将角色摆在用户的脸前绝对没有害处。

不要害怕走寻常路 (Don’t be afraid to follow the uncommon path)

If you’ve spent any time reading about video games over the last few months, you’ve probably heard the name Fortnite. It’s the biggest game in the world right now and it’s made its creator Epic Games and publisher EA more than a billion dollars.

如果您在过去几个月里花了很多时间阅读电子游戏，那么您可能已经听说过Fortnite这个名字。 它是目前世界上最大的游戏，其创造者Epic Games和发行商EA的收入超过10亿美元。

It’s big business. Did you also know it’s something of a modification of a previous game?

这是大生意。 您还知道这是对先前游戏的修改吗？

Well, sort of. Fortnite’s battle royale mode is conceptually similar to a game called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which is arguably the second biggest game in the world right now. The game affectionately known as PUBG pits players against each other in a fight to the death as the play area slowly shrinks.

好吧，有点。 Fortnite的Royale战斗模式在概念上类似于名为PlayerUnknown的Battlegrounds的游戏，该游戏可以说是目前世界上第二大游戏。 亲切地称为PUBG的游戏会在游戏区域逐渐缩小的情况下使玩家彼此抗衡，以进行死亡战斗。

That game originally started as a modification to a previous game. In fact, multi-million dollar games like DOTA 2 or Team Fortress 2 all started as fan-made modifications to existing games. [Just to be clear, Fortnite is not a fan-mod of PUBG — but it did borrow the gameplay concept and uses the same game engine. Ed.]

该游戏最初是对先前游戏的修改。 实际上，数百万美元的游戏(如DOTA 2或Team Fortress 2)都是作为对现有游戏的粉丝修改而开始的。 [仅需说明， Fortnite 并不是 PUBG的狂热爱好者-但它确实借鉴了游戏性概念并使用相同的游戏引擎。 编]

The lesson? Sometimes the best and most valuable decisions your users can make are when they ignore certain things within your design and only focus on the best parts for an entirely different purpose.

课程？ 有时，用户可以做出的最好，最有价值的决定是，当他们忽略设计中的某些内容，而只为最佳目的而专注于最佳零件时。

If your users are constantly using a particular feature of your product, is it worth thinking about whether that feature should become a product in and of itself?

如果您的用户不断使用您产品的特定功能，是否值得考虑该功能是否应成为产品本身？

了解需要更改的特定变量 (Understand the specific variables that need to change)

One of the great things about games is that even the tiniest, smallest detail can have a massive effect on the game. For instance, check out a game like StarCraft or PUBG, they regularly add patches that change how much damage a weapon will do, or how long it takes to reload a weapon.

游戏的一大优点是，即使是最小，最小的细节也可以对游戏产生巨大影响。 例如，签出《 星际争霸》或《 绝地求生》之类的游戏，他们会定期添加补丁，这些补丁会更改武器的伤害程度或重新加载武器所需的时间。

These take months to test.

这些需要几个月的时间进行测试。

Even delaying a reload time by 0.3 seconds can have a huge impact in gameplay. In fact, it might even turn a large portion of your player base against the game entirely.

甚至将重新加载时间延迟0.3秒也会对游戏玩法产生重大影响。 实际上，它甚至可能使您的玩家群中的很大一部分完全与游戏抗衡。

Games do this all the time, and as UX in games has gotten more comprehensive, they’re able to pinpoint the exact things that turn players off. Not just based on what they say, but on what they actually do.

游戏一直在这样做，并且随着游戏中的用户体验变得更加全面，他们能够找出导致玩家关闭的确切原因。 不仅基于他们所说的话，而且基于他们实际所做的。

While not everyone in UX design has those types of tools at their disposal, it highlights a need for any UX designer to be super critical about even the smallest change. They can have the biggest impact.

虽然并非UX设计中的每个人都可以使用这些类型的工具，但它凸显了对于任何UX设计人员，即使是最小的更改，也都必须具有至关重要的作用。 它们可以产生最大的影响。